Chinese engineers from the China Astronaut Research and Training Centre have unveiled a compact device for washing clothes in microgravity conditions. The cube-shaped washing machine weighs about 12 kg and washes up to 800 g of laundry per cycle, using only 400 ml of water in the form of ultra-fine mist and ozone generated by UV light. The approach requires no detergents and minimizes liquid waste – critically important where every drop of water is worth its weight in gold. According to the developers, the cycle lasts about 30 minutes, provides up to 99.9% disinfection, and allows items to be worn up to five times between full cleanings. The system is designed to operate for at least five years and can reduce the mission’s wardrobe by more than 60%. The project is geared toward long-duration flights – from >5 months in orbit to 2.5 months in deep space.
The problem of washing clothes in orbit remains unresolved: on the ISS and Tiangong, water is almost entirely recycled for drinking and hygiene, and clothes are usually worn until they wear out, after which they are disposed of in cargo capsules. Therefore, agencies are seeking solutions that do not use water or use minimal amounts of it for long expeditions.
Astronauts performing exercises and work tasks on the space station. Source: NASA
Economical washing without detergents reduces the need for disposable clothing deliveries, frees up useful space for scientific instruments and consumables, and reduces the risk of microbial contamination on board. For long flights to the Moon and Mars, this means more stable conditions for experiments (from astrophysics to biomedicine) and lower logistical costs for water and cargo missions. In other words, every kilogram saved on laundry can be devoted to a telescope, spectrometer, or additional observation time.
Want to understand where such a “space laundry” will operate and what the China’s “Heavenly Palace” is? Tiangong is a modular station with its own laboratories, experiments in artificial gravity, biology, and materials science, as well as ambitious plans for lunar missions. How it is designed, how it differs from the ISS, and what the next crews will do there — read about it in our article “China’s Heavenly Palace: Tiangong Space Station.”
According to scmp, interestingengineering
